Staff Sergeant being charged wtih 17 murders

[jimnyc]

Can anyone more informed explain the military court a little better? Does he potentially face the death penalty from the military court if convicted? And if found guilty, how and where do they carry out such a sentence?


Pentagon officials said Thursday that they expect Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 38, to be charged on Friday on 17 counts of murder, among other lesser charges.

The charges "are expected tomorrow," a U.S. official told Yahoo News Thursday night on condition of anonymity.

"The charges signed against Bales include 17 counts of murder, six counts of attempted murder and six counts of aggravated assault as well as dereliction of duty and other violations of military law," the Associated Press reported.

The official said he could not explain why Bales was expected to be charged on 17 counts of murder, when the number of Afghan civilians reported to have been killed in a March 11 shooting rampage in Panjwai district, southern Afghanistan was 16, including 9 children.

Bales' Seattle civilian defense attorney John Henry Browne said this week that he would travel to Afghanistan to do his own investigation into what transpired, saying the charges would be hard to prove.

Browne had earlier suggested that the Army should not have sent Bales to Afghanistan after he suffered a concussive brain injury on his third tour in Iraq after his vehicle hit an IED.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/staff-sgt-robert-bales-expected-charged-17-counts-233048462.html

[SassyLady]

Found this but don't know what is the current policy/procedure:


UPDATE: The United States District Court for the District of Kansas entered a stay of execution in Private Ron Gray's case on November 26. The U.S. military had scheduled its first execution since 1961 for December 10. Two decades ago, Pvt. Ronald Gray was convicted and sentenced to death by a general court-martial panel at Fort Bragg for murder and rape committed in the Fayetteville area of North Carolina. Earlier, a North Carolina civilian court had convicted him of the same crimes, but that court sentenced him to a series of life terms, rather than death.

In July, President George W. Bush approved the Army’s request to execute Gray. He has been on the military’s death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, since 1988, and is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection by soldiers at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, which has been the site of executions under the federal death penalty. While the Army has scheduled the execution, there are still important legal issues in the case that have not been fully reviewed.
The last U.S. military execution was in 1961. President John F. Kennedy commuted a military death sentence in 1962. There are currently 9 men on the military death row.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/first-us-military-execution-1961-scheduled-december

[CSM]

Military courts martial have the authority to pass a death sentence. Haven't executed anyone lately though. The baddest of military bad guys go to Leavenworth, though just about any federal prison will do.

[Neo]

Sooooooo......what's going on with Major Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter? Where are the formal charges of murder and assault for him, or is that STILL beting called a "workplace incident" by the Army and Obama Admin?

Apparantly, it is ok for Muslim soilders to open fire on G.I.'s here at home on OUR soil, but not ok to shoot the enemy over there on their soil.
How typical of our Armed Forces heiarchy and our government.:bsflag: is what it is!